5 Digital Marketing Trends To Look Out For In 2018

The world of digital marketing is constantly changing to accommodate both the rising number of internet users and the latest innovations that are emerging every day. Because of this, even the most experienced and competent of digital marketers needs to be on a constant lookout for new trends and be willing to self-improve to meet their requirements. Here are five trends that are expected to play a massive role in 2018.

1.More Time On Blog Posts

When it comes to content marketing, its importance in the landscape cannot be underestimated. This is precisely why bloggers all over the world are dedicating more and more time to writing, editing and tweaking their blog posts. According to a survey, the average time for writing a blog post in 2014 was about 2 hours and 24 minutes, while in 2017 it was at about 3 hours and 30 minutes.

2. Influencer Marketing

Another digital marketing trend that has been on a steady rise for a while now is influencer marketing. According to some unofficial estimates, companies and brands all over the world are spending about $1 billion every year on influencers. While major brands usually prefer to work with A-list celebrities, SMBs and startups might find a greater ROI in working with micro-influencers. For this to work, however, they have to find online personas that are relevant to their target demographic.

3. Digital Publications Are The New Content Marketing Factories

Earlier on, we mentioned that bloggers are spending more and more time on writing their blog posts. However, this is just one side of the coin. In the last couple of years, there has been a noted increase in the interest for blog posts that are at least 3000 words long. This may be closely intertwined with the rising popularity of e-books and similar publications. For this reason alone, turning towards digital media news as a form of content marketing SEO might be a great way to differentiate yourself from some of your closest competitors.

4. Investing In Chatbots

If there is one characteristic that is universally true for all internet users, it is that they are increasingly getting less and less patient. Most of them expect your website to load within the first 2 seconds after they enter.

If they have complaints about your products or services they tend to get more impatient, which is why not responding quickly to their grievances is considered to be bad customer support. While some are still skeptic about the efficiency of chatbots in this regard, about 70 percent of millennials say that their experience with dealing with chatbots is positive, while an additional 9 percent claim it to be at least neutral.

5. Voice Search SEO

In the past several years, Google invested a lot of time and resources into adjusting their search engine for voice searches. This resulted in a massive popularity boost of this feature, which is why today about 41 percent of adults and 55 percent of teens use this function on a daily basis. This also resulted in an increased need for voice search optimized SEO.

Conclusion

Finally, not all the above-listed trends can be considered universally positive or even 100 percent reliable. Sure, influencers have their uses, but more and more analysts warn us that this field of digital marketing is quickly setting itself on a downward spiral. Whether this is the case for the next few years is another story. So far, it seems as if the above-listed five ideas will hold true at least for a little while longer.

Dan Radak is a marketing professional with ten years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and a regular contributor to Technivorz.